When our preparations were complete and we set off on our long journey, they stood for a space at the casement window and waved us goodbye, looking quite charming. I vowed that if Fate by a happy chance were to lead us back to Baghdad with roles reversed, so that they, not we, were captives in the midst of foes, my first care would be to repay their kindly, though unspoken, sympathy. They were too human for the futilities of war, too amiable to have a hand in Armageddon. Only prisoners, I think, see the full absurdity of war. Only prisoners, to begin with, fully realise the gift of life. And only prisoners see war without its glamour, and realise completely the suffering behind the lines: the maimed, the blind, the women who weep. Only by a few of us in happy England has the full tragedy of war been realised. Mere words will never record it, but prisoners know "the heartbreak in the heart of things." To us who have been behind the scenes, far from the shouting and the tumult and the captains and the kings, the wretchedness of it all remains indelible. Nothing can make us forget the broken men and women, whose woes will haunt our times. But I was on the threshold of my experiences then, and the maidens of Baghdad soon passed from memory, I fear--vanishing like the mists of morning that hung over the river-bank at the outset of our journey. We travelled in that marvellous conveyance, the _araba_. To generalise from types is dangerous, but the _araba_ is certainly typical of Turkey. Its discomfort is as amazing as its endurance. It is a rickety cart with a mattress to sit on. A pole (frequently held together by string) to which two ponies are harnessed (frequently again with string) supplies the motive power, which is restrained by reins mended with string, or encouraged by a whip made of string. The contrivance is surmounted by a patchwork hood tied down with string. A few buckets and hay nets are strung between its crazy wheels. Such is the _araba_. How it holds together is a mystery as inscrutable as the East itself. If all the vitality expended in Turkey on starting upon a journey and continuing upon it were turned to other purposes, the land might flourish. But the philosophy which makes the _araba_ possible makes other activities impossible.